Zoe Saldana as Eartha Kitt?

That's what director/actor Orson Welles once declared about the sizzling actress/chanteuse/activist Eartha Kitt. (Kitt was portraying Helen of Troy in Welles' production of "Dr. Faustus.")

Kitt, who rose to fame in the late 1940s with distinctive hits such as "I'd Rather Be Burned As a Witch," "Santa Baby," "I Want to be Evil" and "Monotonous," continued an active career on stage, TV and in films almost until her dying day in 2008.

Now we hear that the film beauty Zoe Saldana is rumored to be first pick to portray Kitt in a biopic chronicling the star's tumultuous life.

Aside from detailing Miss Kitt's career, which, although successful, never quite hit the heights many felt it should, the movie will include Eartha's infamous confrontation with Lady Bird Johnson at a White House luncheon in 1968. So stridently did Kitt oppose the war in Vietnam ("You send the best of this country off to be killed and maimed. No wonder they rebel and take pot!") that Lady Bird fled the luncheon in tears.

Kitt claimed she was blacklisted from working in America for years afterward. Luckily, she was a huge star in Europe and Asia — she spoke four languages and sang in seven — and waited it out. (The CIA investigated Kitt and reportedly referred to her as "a sadistic nymphomaniac.")

Kitt, who was biracial, the product, allegedly, of the rape of her African-American mother by a white plantation owner, said this was a great burden on her as a child and adolescent and even as an adult performer. Once while talking about her upbringing during a TV interview — she was born on a cotton plantation — the usually composed Eartha shockingly burst into tears.

Zoe Saldana, a knockout who has been seen in films as varied as "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Avatar," "Star Trek: Into Darkness" and "Colombiana," is a huge fan of Eartha Kitt and thrilled to have the opportunity to play her.

The project is in its infancy — in the "talking" stage. But Miss Z. is ready to vamp it up. She wants to be, as Eartha purred, "Burned As a Witch."